Cultural Ways of Learning:
Individual Traits or Repertoires of Practice
by Kris D. Gutiérrez and Barbara Rogoff
This article addresses a challenge faced by those who study cultural
variation in approaches to learning: how to characterize regularities
of individuals’ approaches according to their cultural background.
We argue against the common approach of assuming that regularities are static, and that general traits of individuals are attributable
categorically to ethnic group membership. We suggest that a culturalhistorical approach can be used to help move beyond this assumption
by focusing researchers’ and practitioners’ attention on variations in
individuals’ and groups’ histories of engagement in cultural practices
because the variations reside not as traits of individuals or collections of individuals, but as proclivities of people with certain histories of engagement with specific cultural activities. Thus, individuals’
and groups’ experience in activities—not their traits—becomes the
focus. Also, we note that cultural-historical work needs to devote
more attention to researching regularities in the variations among
cultural communities in order to bring these ideas to fruition.
ur article addresses the theoretical issue of how to
characterize commonalities of learning approaches of
individuals who are members of ethnic groups that
historically have been underserved in U. S. schools (e.g., AfricanAmerican, Latino, and Native American students). We believe
that a cultural-historical approach offers a way to get beyond a
widespread assumption that characteristics of cultural groups are
located within individuals as “carriers” of culture—an assumption that creates problems, especially as research on cultural styles
of ethnic (or racial) groups is applied in schools.1 In this article,
after a brief discussion about how cultural styles research has
helped the field think of differences rather than deficits, we use
cultural-historical theory to revise this default assumption. Our
article also presses cultural-historical research to make progress
in characterizing commonalities in the variations across individuals and groups.
O
Cultural Styles: A Way of Talking About
Differences Rather Than Deficits
Research on cultural learning styles first appeared in the United
States at the end of the 1960s, in Lyndon Johnson’s “War on
Poverty” and research efforts to understand “cultural deprivation.” Much of this work grew out of the critical need to ameliorate the inequitable and deplorable schooling experiences of poor
Educational Researcher, Vol. 32, No. 5, pp. 19–25
and working-class students in U.S. public schools—predominantly students of color, many of whom were English-language
learners.
The cultural styles approach arose from these efforts as researchers attempted to leave behind deficit-model thinking, in
which cultural ways that differ from the practices of dominant
groups are judged to be less adequate without examining them
from the perspective of the community’s participants (Cole &
Bruner, 1971; Hilliard & Vaughn-Scott, 1982; Howard & Scott,
1981; McLoyd & Randolph, 1985; McShane & Berry, 1986).
An alternative to the cultural styles approach is to deny cultural
difference; however, ruling out discussions of cultural variation
has often meant that the cultural practices of the dominant group
are taken as the norm. Although deficit-model thinking is still
with us, the cultural styles approach offered an alternative by
characterizing cultural ways of different groups in terms that are
respectful, attempting to describe them without making value
judgments that suggest value hierarchies in cultural practices.
Work on cultural learning styles, however, is sometimes used
in ways that are overly static and categorical—in schools, in
cross-cultural comparisons, and in some of the cultural styles
work that tries to avoid or that challenges the deficit model.
Treating cultural differences as traits, in our view, makes it harder
to understand the relation of individual learning and the practices of cultural communities, and this in turn sometimes hinders effective assistance to student learning.
Helping Students Learn: Having Styles
or Participating in Practices
A common objective across the various approaches we discuss is
the desire to increase student learning. However, treating cultural
difference as a trait leads to a strategy of locating characteristics
separately in the person and in the “context,” and “crossing” style
and context as in the Aptitude X Treatment approach. In educational settings, work on learning styles has often attempted to
take context into account by seeking style matches between student and schooling experiences or between student and teacher
(Banks, 1995). However, some applications of this approach are
based on an assumption that an individual’s “style” is a trait that
is independent of tasks and contexts, and that is constant over
time. Such a matching strategy does not account for change—in
the individual, the activity setting, or the community—and it assumes one style per person according to the individual’s group
categorization. We are particularly concerned with the implications of such applications for students from nondominant groups.
Learning styles constructs have been used to distinguish the
learning styles of “minority” group members and to explain
JUNE/JULY 2003
19
“minority” student failure (see Foley, 1997; Kavale & Forness,
1987; Irvine & York, 1995 for reviews). For example, individuals from one group may be characterized as learning holistically
whereas individuals from another group may be characterized as
learning analytically or individuals may be divided into cooperative versus individualist learners on the basis of membership in
a particular cultural group.
Addressing learning styles as traits also seems to be a common
way to prepare teachers to make the link to diversity (Guild,
1994; Matthews, 1991). Clearly, teaching to a difference that
can be labeled (e.g., learning modalities) sounds appealing to
teachers who have limited resources, support, or training to meet
the challenges of new student populations. An observation by
one high school English as a second language teacher illustrates
the application of a common perception reported in our studies
of English-language learners:
I think it’s also very important to include . . . multimedia techniques because we have a group now in school that is very diverse
in their learning strategies. You know most are visual language
learners, so if you give them something they can see or touch, they
are tactile. That gets to them; they can understand that. (Gutiérrez,
Crosland, & Berlin, 2001)
Of course, there is value in using multiple forms of assistance,
including media. Our focus, however, is on the importance and
benefit of knowing about the histories and valued practices of cultural groups rather than trying to teach prescriptively according
to broad, underexamined generalities about groups. In culturalhistorical approaches, learning is conceived of as a process occurring within ongoing activity, and not divided into separate
characteristics of individuals and contexts (Cole & Engestrom,
1993; Lave, 1996). Including consideration of the history of a person’s or a group’s related engagements can account for “dispositions” they may have in new circumstances. However, the crucial
distinction we are making is between understanding processes and
locating characteristics. Without situating social practices and the
histories of participants in particular communities, approaches
that attribute style to membership in a group make it difficult to
account for variation and change in individuals or their practices.
Treating Cultural Differences As Individual Traits
Encourages Overgeneralization
The trait approach assumes that there is a built-in relationship
between learning style and minority group membership. For example, approaches that accommodate instructional practice to
group styles treat what is “known” about a group as applying to
all individuals in the group. This makes it more likely that groups
will be treated as homogenous, with fixed characteristics carried
by the collection of individuals that comprise the group.
Scholars from a wide range of disciplines have called attention
to the problems of “essentializing” people on the basis of a group
label and have underlined the variability that exists within groups
and their practices. Scholars examining cultural styles have argued for a more situated and dynamic view of the cultural practices of ethnic and racial groups (Banks, 1995; Gay, 1995, 2000;
Irvine & York, 1995; Nieto, 1999).
Yet, the problem of overgeneralization persists, especially in
attempts by schools to design learning experiences that comple20
EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER
ment the learning-style differences of particular ethnic groups
(e.g., Dunn & Dunn, 1992; Dunn, Griggs, & Price, 1993). Although the work on learning styles often cautions against stereotyping and generalizing about the cognitive styles of various
groups, matching individual learning style to a particular ethnic
group may encourage the idea that patterns of performance derive from the essence of an individual or a group. For example,
some studies that contrast the learning styles of students from
several ethnic groups make prescriptions for creating learning
environments that complement the learning-style differences of
the various ethnic groups such as the time of day individuals of
particular groups are receptive to instruction or the instructional
seating arrangement most conducive to particular ethnic groups
(Dunn, Griggs, & Price; Dunn, Gemake, Jalali, Zenhausern,
Quinn, & Spiridakis, 1990; Hickson, Land, & Aikman, 1994).
Unfortunately, categorization of individuals in groups has
been treated causally, yielding explanations and expectations of
individual skills and behaviors on the basis of category membership, assuming that all group members share the same set of experiences, skills, and interests. This has led to a kind of tracking
in which instruction is adjusted merely on the basis of a group
categorization.2
Within a styles approach, a single way of teaching and learning
may be used with a particular group without accounting for individuals’ past experiences with certain practices or without providing instruction that both extends those experiences and introduces
new and even unfamiliar ways of doing things. This stands in stark
contrast to the strategic forms of assistance we have observed in robust learning communities where the co-construction of a community’s various practices and individual development support the
changing nature of participation and the forms of assistance provided in joint activity. In these classroom communities, students
receive multiple forms of assistance and participate in rigorous
learning activities that extend their initial approaches to learning
and participation (Gutiérrez, Baquedano-Lopez, & Tejeda, 1999;
Moll, Saez, & Dworin, 2001; Rogoff, Goodman Turkanis, &
Bartlett, 2001). As a result, students have ongoing opportunities
to assume new roles and learn new approaches.
There are several explanations for the sustained currency of
trait approaches as plausible explanations of individual performance. Notions of individual learning styles are commonplace
in both public and educational discourse. Descriptions and subsequent methods of identification of learning styles can be easy
to understand and to identify within the taxonomies in inventories that provide measures of individual differences and resultant
profiles (Price & Dunn, 1997). Furthermore, reductive notions
of culture and cultural groups may reinforce the broad application of trait approaches.
Beyond Reductive Approaches
Often, normative views of culture are employed in ways that appear benign, especially when they purport to focus on individual
differences rather than on deficits in the individual or in the social group. This is an exceedingly important issue as there continues to be a reductive tendency in the social sciences to seek and
accept singular effects to explain social and cognitive phenomena.
Supported by static or normative understandings of culture, the
application of trait approaches to individual school performance
sometimes leads to what Rose (1988) calls a kind of “cognitive
reductionism.”3 As Rose argues:
A further problem—sometimes inherent in the theories themselves, sometimes a result of reductive application—is the tendency
to diminish cognitive complexity and rely on simplified cognitive
oppositions: independent vs. dependent, literate vs. oral, verbal vs.
spatial, concrete vs. logical. These oppositions are textbook-neat,
but . . . are narrow and misleading. (p. 268)
In some cases, the learning or cognitive styles typologies have
a basis in observations of average differences in some populations. In many cases, however, the typologies are offered simply
as categories without research substantiating their relationship to
the groups so characterized or to their utility for practice. As
Tiedeman (1989) suggested, “To date, research evidence is inadequate to judge [cognitive styles’] validity or usefulness in
adapting instruction to individuals; some have been called seriously into question” (p. 599).
A cultural-historical approach can help researchers and practitioners characterize the commonalities of experience of people who
share cultural background, without “locating” the commonalities within individuals. However, within cultural-historical approaches, there has not yet been sufficient attention to figuring out
how to talk and think about regularities across individuals’ or cultural communities’ ways of doing things. To move beyond the idea
of traits located in individual members of ethnic groups, we need
to make progress in understanding regularities in how engagement
in shared and dynamic practices of different communities contributes to individual learning and development.
Conceiving of style as an individual trait can lead to a strategy
of matching characterizations of individuals (or collections of
them), on the one hand, and characterizations of contexts on the
other. This approach treats contexts as if they exist independently of the people active in creating and maintaining them,
and views individuals as though their characteristics are unrelated
to the contexts in which they and their families have participated
in recent generations. We argue that people live culture in a mutually constitutive manner in which it is not fruitful to tote up
their characteristics as if they occur independently of culture, and
of culture as if it occurs independently of people.
A Shift to Experience Participating
in Cultural Practices
We are concerned with how researchers and practitioners can
conceive of regularities in approaches to learning among people
of similar cultural background experiences without reifying those
cultural patterns and practices as located in individuals. We propose a shift from the assumption that regularities in groups are
carried by the traits of a collection of individuals to a focus on
people’s history of engagement in practices of cultural communities. In cultural-historical approaches, cultural differences are
attributed to variations in people’s involvement in common practices of particular cultural communities (Moll, 2000; Rogoff,
Mistry, Göncü, & Mosier, 1993). A central and distinguishing
thesis in this approach is that the structure and development of
human psychological processes emerge through participation in
culturally mediated, historically developing, practical activity involving cultural practices and tools (Cole, 1996).
People’s varied participation in the practices of dynamic cultural communities can be distinguished from membership in ethnic groups, which often is treated in an all-or-none, static fashion
(Rogoff, 2003). Individuals participate in varying and overlapping ways that change over their lifetimes and over historical
change in a community’s organization and relationships with
other communities (Cole, 1998; Lave, 1996; Rogoff & Angelillo,
2002). As Cole and Engestrom (1993) argue, culture “is experienced in local, face-to-face interactions that are locally constrained and heterogeneous with respect to both ‘culture as a
whole’ and the parts of the entire toolkit experienced by any
given individual” (p. 15).
Of course, there are regularities in the ways cultural groups participate in the everyday practices of their respective communities.
However, the relatively stable characteristics of these environments are in constant tension with the emergent goals and practices participants construct, which stretch and change over time
and with other constraints. This conflict and tension contribute
to the variation and ongoing change in an individual’s and a community’s practices (Engestrom, 1993; Gutiérrez, 2002).
We believe that looking for cultural regularities will be more
fruitful—both for research and practice—if we focus our examination of differences on cultural processes in which individuals
engage with other people in dynamic cultural communities,
some of which involve ethnic or racial group membership in important ways. By cultural community we mean a coordinated
group of people with some traditions and understandings in
common, extending across several generations, with varied roles
and practices and continual change among participants as well as
transformation in the community’s practices (see Rogoff, 2003).
For example, people draw on intergenerationally conveyed concepts, ways of talking, and belief systems that may be used and
negotiated locally in communities that are often identified internally and by their neighbors in terms of ethnicity and race.
By focusing on the varied ways people participate in their community’s activities, we can move away from the tendency to conflate ethnicity with culture, with assignment to ethnic groups made
on the basis of immutable and often stable characteristics such as
Spanish surname or country of birth. Equating culture with race,
ethnicity, language preference, or national origin results in overly
deterministic, static, weak, and uncomplicated understandings of
both individuals and the community practices in which they participate (Gutiérrez, Asato, Santos, & Gotanda, 2002).
We are not arguing that group membership defined by ethnicity, race, and language use is irrelevant. These categories have
long-standing influences on the cultural practices in which people have the opportunity to participate, often yielding shared circumstances, practices, and beliefs that play important and varied
roles for group members. People do not just choose to move in
and out of different practices, taking on new and equal participation in cultural communities.
Toward a Cultural-Historical Way
to Describe Cultural Regularities
From a cultural-historical perspective, we can examine people’s
usual ways of doing things, trying to understand individuals’ history of involvement in the practices of varied communities, inJUNE/JULY 2003
21
cluding ethnic or national communities as well as others such as
academic or religious communities (Rogoff, 2003). Consider the
finding that children who immigrated recently to the United
States from rural Mexican communities more often studiously
observed ongoing events without pushing adults to explain them
than did children whose families immigrated from Europe generations before (Mejía Arauz, Rogoff, & Paradise, 2003). To
make sense of this difference, we may gain some understanding
by examining the dynamic structure of the sending and receiving
communities’ traditions. For example, the rural Mexican communities’ frequent inclusion of children in a range of adult activities may relate to the attentiveness of children who may have been
encouraged to observe and take part in their families’ work and
social lives (Rogoff, Paradise, Mejía Arauz, Correa-Chávez, &
Angelillo, 2003). The European-American communities’ tradition
of excluding children from adult activities—where they could observe what they are supposed to be learning—may also help us understand the proclivity of some of these students to request adult
explanation even in a situation that calls for observation.
Examining cultural variation in terms of familiarity with different practices in dynamic communities organized in distinct manners is a very different approach than attributing a “visual” style
to Mexican children or a “verbal” style to European-American
middle-class children. We argue that it is more useful to consider
differences in the children’s, their families’, and their communities’ histories of engaging in particular endeavors organized in
contrasting manners. This avoids the implication that the characteristic is “built in” to the individual (or a group) in a stable
manner that extends across time and situations, and it recognizes
the circumstances relevant to an individual’s likelihood of acting
in certain ways.
Cultural-historical theory leads us to expect regularities in the
ways cultural communities organize their lives as well as variations in the ways individual members of groups participate and
conceptualize the means and ends of their communities’ activities. For example, Tejeda and Espinoza (2002) observed that high
school students from migrant farm worker backgrounds often
used hybrid language practices in sense-making activities designed to promote critical reflection about their course subject
matter as well as about their life experiences as migrants. We
noted similar linguistic practices in the learning repertoires of elementary school children in computer-mediated learning clubs
(Gutiérrez, Baquedano-Lopez, & Alvarez, 2001). As with the research of Mejía Arauz et al. (2003), intent observation and minimal question asking seemed to characterize the participation
patterns of both the elementary school children and the high
school students.
These descriptions of regularities are useful in understanding
literacy development. However, our references to “migrants” and
“English-language learners” and their practices are used as descriptors rather than as categorical classification of individuals or
groups. We attribute the regularities to the students’ participation in familiar cultural practices as well as to their public schooling experiences that restrict engagement and limit the use of the
cultural resources that are part of their repertoires. We must also
understand such regularities in light of the colonizing practices
of which they have been a part (Tejeda, Espinoza, & Gutiérrez,
22
EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER
2003).4 A cultural-historical approach assumes that individual
development and disposition must be understood in (not separate from) cultural and historical context. In other words, we talk
about patterns of people’s approaches to given situations without
reducing the explanation to a claim that they do what they do because they are migrant farm workers or English-language learners.
We attend to individuals’ linguistic and cultural-historical repertoires as well as to their contributions to practices that connect
with other activities in which they commonly engage.
Repertoires for Participating in Practices
By “linguistic and cultural-historical repertoires,” we mean the
ways of engaging in activities stemming from observing and otherwise participating in cultural practices. Individuals’ background
experiences, together with their interests, may prepare them for
knowing how to engage in particular forms of language and literacy activities, play their part in testing formats, resolve interpersonal problems according to specific community-organized
approaches, and so forth. An important feature of focusing on
repertoires is encouraging people to develop dexterity in determining which approach from their repertoire is appropriate
under which circumstances (Rogoff, 2003).
Characterizing children’s repertoires or proclivities would involve characterizing their experience and initiative in prior cultural
activities (Rogoff, 1997). We would characterize their repertoires
in terms of their familiarity with engaging in particular practices
on the basis of what is known about their own and their community’s history. For example, students who have participated in varying cultural traditions would differ in repertoires for engaging in
discussions with authority figures, answering known-answer questions, analyzing word problems on the basis of counterfactual
premises, seeking or avoiding being singled out for praise, spontaneously helping classmates, observing ongoing events without
adult management, responding quickly or pondering ideas before
volunteering their contributions, and many other approaches that
are sometimes treated as characteristics of individuals.
It is relevant to take into account the development of the cultural activities as well. To understand both individual and community learning it is necessary to examine the nature and forms
of cultural artifacts and tools used; the social relations, rules, and
division of labor; and the historical development of individuals
and communities. We would then be able to characterize a
child’s repertoires and dexterity in moving between approaches
appropriate to varying activity settings. In the process, we would
have a historical developmental account of that child’s or that
community’s familiar, value-laden experience, and we would be
able to speak about the usual, customary, or even habitual approaches taken by individuals (and communities) in known circumstances. The circumstances would have to be taken into
account as aspects of the regularities described and not just
“crossed with” the independent characteristics of individuals.
A Few Suggestions for Proceeding With
the Idea of Repertoires of Practice
For both researchers and teachers, the trait approach has the attraction of apparent simplicity. In research and practice, we often
have to proceed on the basis of partial information. We need to
consider the implications for research and educational practice
when only a little cultural information is available.
For example, how can a teacher proceed with minimal cultural
background information on which to base action? The teacher
would look for students’ familiarity of experience with cultural
practices by seeking to understand the students’ short- or longterm history. For example, a new teacher in an African-American
low-income neighborhood, inspired by Carol Lee’s (1993, 2001)
research, may wonder if he or she can extend the students’ outof-school skills in analysis of metaphor and figurative language
to the analysis of literature, making use of familiarity with the
practice of “signifying” (ritualized language play involving clever
insults). To do so, the teacher would need some understanding
of this practice and would need to check his or her assumption
that these students are familiar with it, to confirm or disconfirm
his or her hypothesis that these students have similar background
experience with Lee’s students. Rather than pigeonholing individuals into categories and teaching to the students’ “traits” or
attempting to replace those traits, the emphasis would be placed
on helping students develop dexterity in using both familiar and
new approaches.
The researcher’s work, from a cultural-historical approach, is
similar: focus on understanding developing individuals and changing communities, making first guesses about patterns and seeking confirmation or disconfirmation to extend what is known.
Researchers thus need understanding of the practices under
study, including an understanding of the relationship between a
community’s practices and the routine practices in which an individual participates. They would check their assumptions about
an individual’s familiarity with the focal practice as well as seek
further information about whether and how an individual might
participate in the practice.
The work ahead of us is to characterize the dynamic patterns of
individuals’ participation in building on historical constellations
of community practices, continuing and transforming across generations. In this concluding section, we offer some specific suggestions that we have found useful in moving into this approach
in our research.
1. To avoid making overly general statements based on research,
it helps to speak of the findings in the past tense—“The
children did such and such”—rather than the continuing
present—“Children do such and such” (Rogoff, 2003). Using
the past tense marks the findings as statements of what was
observed rather than too quickly assuming a timeless truth to
what is always a situated observation. Summary statements
that refer to activities or situations in which observations were
made are likely to help avoid generalizing too quickly about
populations. Only when there is a sufficient body of research
with different people under varying circumstances would
more general statements be justified.
2. To ground cultural observations in the historical, dynamic
processes of communities, labels that refer to research participants can be treated not as categories but as narrative descriptors of the participants’ backgrounds (e.g., middle class,
Catholic, farming, of Armenian heritage, in California, immigrated to escape massacre, two generations ago). In other
words, ethnic and other cultural descriptors may fruitfully
help researchers examine cultural practices if they are not assumed to imply an essence of the individual or group involved, and are not treated as causal entities.
3. To examine how aspects of participants’ community background cluster and how they change, it helps to treat them as
a constellation of factors (Rogoff & Angelillo, 2002). This
contrasts with trying to isolate or “control” independent categories to determine which is the active ingredient causing an
outcome or a trait. Rather than trying to hold all “factors” but
one or a few constant, cultural research requires focus on the
dynamically changing configuration of relevant aspects of
people’s lives.
4. To avoid overgeneralizing, statements based on single observations should be made very cautiously, limiting generalization of simple observations of test performance or behavior
under restricted circumstances beyond the situations observed. The aim is to ground observations across multiple settings and communities and to assume various vantage points
to understand the complexity of human activity. The intent,
especially in regard to poor children and children of color,
would be to identify a course of action or assistance that
would help ensure student learning, rather than to define who
a child is or that child’s future potential (Berlin, 2002).
We propose these suggestions to advance the conversation
about how to account for both cultural regularities and variations,
with a cultural-historical emphasis on understanding individuals
as participants in cultural communities. We believe that attending
to these issues will help move us away from oversimplified approaches to the learning, achievement, and potential of individuals and cultural groups.
NOTES
We are grateful to Carol Lee for engaging us together in this project, for
her insightful questions and comments that prompted our further
thinking, and for her patience and wit. We also appreciate the discussions with and comments of Frederick Erickson, Carlos Tejeda, Geneva
Gay, Michael Cole, and Alfredo Artiles on earlier drafts of this work and
Jolynn Asato for her research assistance. This work was supported by
UC ACCORD, the UC Latino Policy Institute, and by the UC Santa
Cruz Foundation chair in psychology.
1 The practice of trying to locate cultural difference within individuals leads to commonplace but ludicrous statements such as referring to
individuals as diverse (e.g., “The class has a large proportion of diverse
students”)—referring to students from educationally underserved
populations as diverse with the implication that the others are the
standard—thus, normalizing the dominant group. Difference cannot be
attributed to a single side of a contrast.
2 Or, even more insidious, the presumed characteristic may be used
to justify restricting opportunities, as with teachers who refer to a group’s
presumed cooperativeness to justify placing some students in activities
that they have not chosen (while others’ preferences are granted), or for
requiring some children to share textbooks or other materials: “Well,
you see, Hispanics are cooperative children. They don’t mind sharing
things. These other students like to work alone and independently.
With Hispanics it is all right to have students work together” (Ortiz,
1988, p.79).
3 Another colleague credits what she calls “main effects junkies” in
part for this tendency in the social sciences.
4 For example, Spanish is the first language of many of the students
we observe, which is an artifact of their interaction/participation in their
communities’ activities. It is also an artifact of the colonization of Central America and the U.S. Southwest. A similar analysis can be developed, in part, for the students’ code switching from Spanish to English
(i.e., their participation in multiple communities and institutions as well
as their language status, English-only policies, and other factors). These
JUNE/JULY 2003
23
are not neutral cultural practices. Cultural tools must be understood in
terms of the current and historical intent.
REFERENCES
Banks, J. A. (Ed.). (1995). Handbook of research on multicultural education. New York: Macmillan.
Berlin, D. (2002). The social construction of deviance: Effects of labeling
on students with learning difficulties. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.
Cole, M. (1996). Cultural psychology: A once and future discipline. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Cole, M. (1998). Can cultural psychology help us think about diversity?
Mind, Culture, and Activity, 5(4), 291–304.
Cole, M., & Bruner, J. S. (1971). Cultural differences and inferences
about psychological processes. American Psychologist, 26, 867–876.
Cole, M., & Engestrom, Y. (1993). A cultural-historical approach to
distributed cognition. In G. Salomon (Ed.), Distributed cognitions:
Psychological and educational considerations (pp. 1–46). New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Dunn, R., & Dunn, K. (1992). Teaching elementary students through
their individual learning styles. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Dunn, R., Gemake, J., Jalali, F., Zenhausern, R., Quinn, P., & Spiridakis,
J. (1990). Cross-cultural differences in learning styles of elementaryage students from four ethnic backgrounds. Journal of Multicultural
Counseling and Development, 18, 68–93.
Dunn, R., Griggs, S. A., & Price, G. E. (1993). Learning styles of
Mexican-American and Anglo-American elementary school students.
Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 21, 237–247.
Engestrom, Y. (1993). Developmental studies of work as a test bench
of activity theory: The case of primary care medical practice. In S.
Chaiklin & J. Lave (Eds.), Understanding practice: Perspective on activity and context (pp. 64–103). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Foley, D. (1997). Deficit thinking models based on culture: The anthropological protest. In R. Valencia (Ed.), The evolution of deficit
thinking: Educational thought and practice (pp. 113–131). Washington, DC: Falmer Press.
Gay, G. (1995). Curriculum theory and multicultural education. In J. A.
Banks (Ed.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (pp.
25–43). New York: Macmillan.
Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching. New York: Teachers College Press.
Guild, P. (1994). The culture/learning style connection. Educational
Leadership, 51(8), 16–21.
Gutiérrez, K. (2002). Studying cultural practices in urban learning communities. Human Development, 45(4), 312–321.
Gutiérrez, K., Asato, J., Santos, M., & Gotanda, N. (2002). Backlash
pedagogy: Language and culture and the politics of reform. The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 24(4), 335–351.
Gutiérrez, K., Baquedano-Lopez, P., & Alvarez, H. (2001). Literacy as
hybridity: Moving beyond bilingualism in urban classrooms. In M.
de la Luz Reyes & J. Halcón (Eds.), The best for our children: Critical
perspectives on literacy for Latino students (pp. 122–141). New York:
Teachers College Press.
Gutiérrez, K., Baquedano-Lopez, P., & Tejeda, C. (1999). Rethinking
diversity: Hybridity and hybrid language practices in the third space.
Mind, Culture, & Activity, 6, 286–303.
Gutiérrez, K., Crosland, K., & Berlin, D. (2001). Reconsidering coaching: Assisting teachers’ literacy practices in the zone of proximal development. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Educational
Research Association, Seattle, WA.
Hickson, J., Land, A. J., & Aikman, G. (1994). Learning style differences in middle school pupils from four ethnic backgrounds. School
Psychology International, 15, 349–359.
24
EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER
Hilliard, A. G., III, & Vaughn-Scott, M. (1982). The quest for the “minority” child. In S. G. Moore & C. R. Cooper (Eds.), The young
child: Reviews of research (Vol. 3, pp. 175–189). Washington, DC:
National Association for the Education of Young Children.
Howard, A., & Scott, R. A. (1981). The study of minority groups in
complex societies. In R. H. Munroe, R. L. Munroe, & B. B. Whiting
(Eds.), Handbook of cross-cultural human development (pp. 113–152).
New York: Garland.
Irvine, J., & York, D. (1995). Learning styles and culturally diverse students. In J. A. Banks (Ed.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (pp. 484–497). New York: Macmillan.
Kavale, K. A., & Forness, S. R. (1987). Substance over style: Assessing
the efficacy of modality testing and teaching. Exceptional Children,
56(3), 228–239.
Lave, J. (1996). Teaching, as learning in practice. Mind, Culture, and
Activity, 3, 149–164.
Lee, C. ( 2001). Is October Brown Chinese? A cultural modeling activity system for underachieving students. American Educational Research Journal, 38(1), 97–141.
Lee, C. D. (1993). Signifying as a scaffold for literary interpretation. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
Matthews, D. B. (1991). Learning styles research: Implications for increasing students in teacher education programs. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 18, 228–236.
McLoyd, V. C., & Randolph, S. M. (1985). Secular trends in the study of
Afro-American children: A review of Child Development, 1936–1980.
In A. B. Smuts & J. W. Hagen (Eds.), History and research in child
development (pp. 78–92). Monographs of the Society for Research in
Child Developmen, 50 (Serial No. 211).
McShane, D., & Berry, J. W. (1986). Native North Americans: Indian
and Inuit abilities. In J. H. Irvine & J. W. Berry (Eds.), Human abilities in cultural context (pp. 385–426). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
Mejía Arauz, R., Rogoff, B., & Paradise, R. (2003). Cultural variation
in children’s observation of a demonstration. Manuscript submitted for
publication.
Moll, L. C. (2000). Inspired by Vygotsky: Ethnographic experiments in
education. In C. Lee & P. Smagorinsky (Eds.), Vygotskian perspectives
on literacy research: Constructing meaning through collaborative inquiry
(pp. 256–268). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Moll, L., Saez, R., & Dworin, J. (2001). Exploring biliteracy: Two student case examples of writing as a social practice. Elementary School
Journal, 101(4), 435–449.
Nieto, S. (1999). The light in their eyes: Creating multicultural learning
communities. New York: Teachers College Press.
Ortiz, F. I. (1988). Hispanic-American children’s experiences in classrooms. In L. Weis (Ed.), Class, race, and gender in American education (pp. 63–86). Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Price, G. E., & Dunn, R. (1997). LSI Manual. Lawrence, KS: Price Systems, Inc.
Rogoff, B. (1997). Evaluating development in the process of participation: Theory, methods, and practice building on each other. In E.
Amsel & A. Renninger (Eds.), Change and development: Issues of theory, application, and method (pp. 265–285). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Rogoff, B. (2003). The cultural nature of human development. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Rogoff, B., & Angelillo, C. (2002). Investigating the coordinated functioning of multifaceted cultural practices in human development.
Human Development, 45, 211–225.
Rogoff, B., Goodman Turkanis, C., & Bartlett, L. (2001). Learning together: Children and adults in a school community. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Rogoff, B., Mistry, J., Göncü, A., & Mosier, C. (1993). Guided participation in cultural activity by toddlers and caregivers. Monographs of
the Society for Research and Child Development, 58 (7, Serial No. 236).
Rogoff, B., Paradise, R., Mejía Arauz, R., Correa-Chávez, M., &
Angelillo, C. (2003). Firsthand learning through intent participation. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 175–203.
Rose, M. (1988). Narrowing the mind and page: Remedial writers and
cognitive reductionism. College Composition and Communication,
39(3), 267–301.
Tejeda, C., & Espinoza, M. (2002). Reconceptualizing the role of dialogue
in transformative learning. Paper presented at meetings of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA.
Tejeda, C., Espinoza, M., & Gutiérrez, K. (2003). Toward a decolonizing pedagogy: Social justice reconsidered. In P. Trifonas (Ed.), Pedagogy of difference: Rethinking education for social change (pp. 10–40).
New York: Routledge.
Tiedeman, J. (1989). Measures of cognitive style. Educational Psychologist, 24(3), 261–275.
AUTHORS
KRIS D. GUTIÉRREZ is professor, University of California, Los Angeles, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, Urban
Schooling: Curriculum, Teaching, Leadership & Policy Studies, 1026
Moore Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1521; [email protected]. Her research interests focus on literacy learning and culture in both formal
and nonformal learning environments, and on the study of educational
reform on English language learners.
BARBARA ROGOFF is UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology,
University of California, Santa Cruz, 277 Social Sciences 2, Santa Cruz,
CA 95064; [email protected]. Her research focuses on cultural supports
for learning, especially learning through observation and varying participation structures.
Manuscript received November 20, 2002
Revisions received March 14, 2003
Accepted March 25, 2003
NEW EDITORIAL TEAM FOR ER
Features Co-Editors: Michèle Foster and Stafford Hood
Research News and Comment Co-Editors: Sonja Lanehart and Paul Schutz
Book Review Editor: Kathy Nakagawa
Beginning July 1, 2003, all manuscripts will be submitted electronically to the new team.
Authors should submit new manuscripts to http://www.aera.net/er.
For specific questions or inquiries, send e-mail to editors at the following addresses:
Features ([email protected])
Research News and Comment ([email protected])
Book Review ([email protected])
JUNE/JULY 2003
25